Author: Joe Martin

Unlimited Hyperbole is a games podcast I created with Harriet Jones and which ran from 2012 to 2015. The show was created to explore the games industry in a new and provocative way, using a series of creative restrictions. Every season of Unlimited Hyperbole features five episodes, each approaching the central topic in a different way. Episodes are 15 minutes long, trimmed from much longer interviews to preserve focus. All Episodes – One Package All Five Seasons (260mb) Special Episode – ‘What Would You Change?’ 2014 Christmas Special: Various Guests Season Four – ‘The One That Got Away’ Episode 1: Prof. Brian Moriarty, Academic Episode 2: David Brown, Journalist Episode…

As a journalist I’ve been lucky enough to broach a number of big exclusives and work on some great articles, but the ones I’m most proud of collect, preserve and report how games change during development. I work with universities, museums and the original developers to uncover the design documents for these games, then usally write up my findings for the Gamer Network, including Eurogamer and RockPaperShotgun. For example, did you know that Warren Spector’s original design document for Deus Ex set the game in a Russian-occupied Texas? Or that a cancelled Thief sequel led by Ion Storm’s Harvey Smith would have rebooted the series in…

In 2014 I spent six months researching two cancelled Deus Ex games that had been in production at Ion Storm Austin before it collapsed. Neither of the games were announced at the time, but with help from the Dolph Briscoe Archive at the University of Texas I was able to uncover design documents, concept art and more. In the end I wrote a feature on the topic for Eurogamer, called Ion Storm’s Lost Deus Ex Sequels. Both games were cancelled ahead of release and suffered from protracted, troubled development. The first attempt, called Deus Ex: Insurrection, was led by Art…

In 2015 I gave a lecture at Videobrains in London about my exclusive research into a cancelled Thief game that was in development at Ion Storm before it’s collapse almost a decade previously. The lecture was based on an article I wrote for Eurogamer, in which I interviewed a developer who worked on the project and shared some of the original design documents. You can read the full Eurogamer article, The Modern Day Thief Reboot That Never Was, for more information on Thief 4 – but I’ve also included my slides and script below. The game itself was called Thief…

In 2015 I wrote for Trusted Reviews about the development of the 2014 reboot of Tomb Raider by Crystal Dynamics, focusing on content that was cut from the game before release and alternate directions the team pitched. The article focused on two different pitches that Crystal Dynamics proposed, the first an unnamed survival horror version and the second known as Tomb Raider: Ascension. Primarily a survival horror game, Tomb Raider: Ascension would have taken place on an entirely different island, with an entirely different cast. In 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot, Lara starts off young and timid, relying on the encouragement…

A year ago I heard a developer mention a modern day reboot of Thief. Stunned I hadn’t heard of it already, I asked when it was coming out. Never, he said – it was cancelled almost ten years ago. “When we pitched to Eidos, the feedback was ‘no supernatural stuff’,” my secret source told me. “We were going with a 100% realistic game set only in the real world. Many designs and decisions changed by the time the project was killed.” Eidos and Ion Storm may have cancelled the project, but I got hold of the internal pitch document, spoke to the team…